Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The world’s 2,153 billionaires currently control more wealth than the bottom 4.6 billion people (60% of the planet’s population) precisely because the worldwide exploitation of working classes has thrown up perverse patterns of maldistribution.
As of November 17, the combined wealth of 647 U.S. billionaires increased by almost $960 billion since mid-March, the beginning of the pandemic lockdown—an increase of nearly $1 trillion in less than a year
Participatory, local democracy is the solution to our systemic issues. There is clear economic, social and political evidence that a Covid recovery plan towards a green economy is the only logical way forward.
Can commoning be affirmatively protected via conventional state law while respecting the integrity of commoning as a post-capitalist social form?
The global pandemic has revealed just how fragile our global supply chains are. This is something we’ve talked about a lot at Strong Towns, but of course the disruptions aren’t only being experienced in the United States.
In Europe, “degrowth” is actually a movement, while in the US it is barely mentionable in polite society. To question “growth” would be the death knell for any serious politician.
In other words, it is impossible, within the time constraints that we are now facing, to decouple GDP growth from environmental damage strongly and deeply enough to be able to adequately repair that damage.
Returning to the All Party Group on the Limits to Growth, and practical politics, the task is to promote enactable short-range policies that take us towards a post-growth future. These need to be transformational in effect…
In today’s somewhat bleak political landscape, we need to get serious about building strong counterweights to the power of extractive rentier capital.
No one would deny that it is possible to make capitalism greener, nor that it should be urgently done. Yet the proposal of eco-productivism remains short-sighted.
I believe ‘high’ technology will not solve global problems and propose a different ‘low tech’ approach to building a more resilient, equitable and sustainable society.
We believe the degrowth community should invest time and energy into the creation and legitimisation of a Degrowth International, to conduct these processes of collective deliberation.
